iPhone Hacks

Chapter 8. CUSTOMIZATION

People like to personalize and customize their phones. The multibillion-dollar ringtone market is a testament to that fact. And although Apple has provided a few ways to rearrange icons and change a background picture, there are dozens of other aspects of the phone that people want to change—but ordinarily can’t.

The simplest example is ringtones. Although you can make ringtones out of any song you’ve bought online, iTunes doesn’t provide a way to make them with the songs you already have. With the techniques described in this chapter, that’s easy to remedy. System-wide skinning, system sounds, boot screens, and even the words that your iPhone recognizes are all susceptible to change once you know how. And if you want, you can even go beyond software and make skin-deep changes to the color scheme of your phone.

With almost 10 million iPhones sold at the time of this writing, you may no longer feel unique in having an iPhone. In some circles, just about everyone has one. But before mourning your complete loss of social cachet, it’s worth noting that according to Gartner Research (www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=612207), about a billion mobile phones ship each year.

If you’re still feeling like a lemming after that reassurance, remember that performing the hacks in this chapter will help you ensure that your iPhone is unequivocally one of a kind.

Add Custom Ringtones to Your iPhone

The iPhone comes with several preinstalled ringtones when you first purchase it, ...